Land mine kills four Tunisian soldiers: ministry

TUNIS: Four Tunisian soldiers were killed by a land mine Wednesday in the country's northwest, where the authorities are waging a campaign against suspected jihadists, the defence ministry said.

"Four soldiers aboard a Hummer were killed by a land mine explosion during an anti-terror operation" at Jebel Ouergha in Kef governorate, said ministry spokesman Rachid Bouhoula.

Officials had earlier put the toll at three dead.

Weapons "caches of the terrorists were destroyed and units of the security forces pursued these elements," Bouhoula told AFP.

On Tuesday, four soldiers and two policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in a mountainous region of Kef, two days after a similar attack injured another policeman.

Tunisia has been rocked by Islamist violence since the 2011 revolution that toppled a decades-old dictatorship and touched off the Arab Spring.

Authorities say they have gained the upper hand in the fight against militants active along the Algerian border, while acknowledging the campaign to root out all the jihadists will take time.